Frilly and Flouncy Ruffled Balls

As I’ve said at least a dozen times before, this household of girls loves some frilly ruffles! So this year, I set my sights on ruffling up some large holiday ball ornaments. They were a perfect addition to our tree, and as an added bonus – they were quite easy to make! Want to make some? Here’s how:

Materials:

6″ styrofoam ball.

approximately 8 to 10 inches of 45″ wide fabric per ball (your mileage will vary depending on the ruffliness of your ruffles).

3 pieces of 10″ long raffia for braiding.

1 – 12″ piece of raffia for knotting around bottom of hanger.

thumb tacks

hot glue

For the hanger: I braided the three pieces of raffia and stuck a flat head thumb tack through the braid on both ends, then hot glued the raffia to the tacks. Along with another generous dollop of hot glue on the sharp end, I stuck each tack beside each other into the foam ball. Then I moved on to the ruffles…

I cut my fabric into six 1 and 1/2 inch strips and sewed them together to make one long strip, then folded the strip in half wrong sides together, raw edges together. (It’s a good idea to iron your strip at this point.) To gather the strip, I basted about 1/8 inch from the raw edge. My trick to even gathering, (as I’ve noted before on this blog), is to set my sewing machine to the highest tension so it gathers the fabric by itself as you sew.

Starting at the hanger, hot glue the ruffly strip around the ball until it’s completely covered, with each row covering the gathering stitch on the row before it. At the bottom of your raffia hanger, tie the 12″ piece of raffia and knot it on one side, then the other, over and over until the raw edge of the fabric strip is covered.

Hi Debra, I started at the top and worked my way down. It does mean that you have to fold the ruffle up as you go but it’s really not a big problem. I’d think either way would work just fine! Have fun!